Archive by category | Materials Research Society

MRS: Solar’s hot, or not

This meeting has seen loads of talks about solar power. Materials science can help harvest energy from the sun in many ways. I have learned about conventional silicon, with David Carlson from BP Solar predicting that crystalline silicon, despite its expense, will continue to dominate the photovoltaics market for some time. He also offered a gloomy prediction for solar start-ups. “A lot of companies won’t survive” he says. “there are too many, that’s just not stable,” especially in the current economic climate.  Read more

MRS: wrapping up bugs to clean up water

I just saw a really neat presentation, by Ying Li, from Stony Brook University. She is working on ways to clean up water contaminated with radioactive waste. It turns out that a certain type of microbe, Pseudomonas Fluorescens, can gobble up 98% of radionuclide contaminants.  Read more

MRS: Miracle cure for the climate?

The plenary session on Monday, already alluded to on this blog, was given by Susan Solomon. She is from NOAA, and has a list of academic honours as long as my arm. Longer, actually. Her talk was nothing to do with materials science, but had a very relevant message to the throng of materialosi.